Russia on brink of ... NOPE! Russia INVADES Ukraine!

[K1052]

Pulling out some classics

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575115127476690946

 

[Dave_5k]

So what's up with the Nordstream pipelines leaking?

Sounds very much as though it was a deliberate attack. But what would be the rationale for doing so, when they aren't currently being used and are, as I understand it, legally owned by Russians anyway?

Nordstream is 50.002% held by Gazprom subsidiary, the balance is owned by 4 European firms.

Our Shareholders - Nord Stream AG

Nord Stream is a natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. The pipeline is a key factor in securing energy security in Europe.

www.nord-stream.com

Gazprom does operate & control flow of gas, but Gazprom may have some contractual liability for failing to deliver as operator - although it has been getting around that via extended fictitious "maintenance" issues recently. But force majeure from external damage to pipeline will almost certainly absolve it of any contractual claims for failure to perform.

Who benefits?
- European natural gas price futures spiked ~20% - anyone with a long interest in future gas deliveries to Europe.
- Norway, Netherlands benefit from higher prices as exporters; also Qatar, US and any other international LNG suppliers with spare capacity
- Russia sees additional economic pressure on Europe, possibly hoping to aid in their efforts to force change of EU political leadership / reduce support for Ukraine [see: new Italy ruling coalition with substantial pro-Russia elements], and avoids (on paper) some liability for failure to deliver gas.

 

[dank69]

Some good stuff in here:

https://imgur.com/a/WEguWw6

 

[Brainonska511]

Just saw a thread on Twitter noting how quickly Russian online sources pushed the "US did it" narrative re: pipeline to then be laundered by Russian stooges and their assets in the west.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575137413340561411

 

[cytg111]

It's "piss poor" to call out Ukraine or the US. It's not exactly "piss poor" to call out Russia, another "specific country." They have the capability, and it would be just like Putin to display this capability as a warning shot, since there are other undersea pipelines he could disrupt.

Listen, if I had that capability, I might had done it.

 

[Dave_5k]

It was obviously the Ukranians, the fact that people don't even consider this seems pretty blinkered. I mean, logically it's not complex. It's your enemy, they get paid $10's of billions a month for gas by Europe, that is then used to buy bombs to kill Ukranians. If you could cut that financial supply with a small boat, a remote controlled sub and some charges why would you not? Kick them where it hurts, hard in the wallet. Obviously Russia still has other pipelines .... that go through Ukraine ... so gives Ukraine greater control of Russian gas.

Finally you can blame it on the Russians because no one believes a word they say.

If Ukraine had the capability to secretly plant sub-sea explosives, some 800km away from Ukraine ~ they would instead have blown the Kerch bridge supports

 

[amenx]

Make what you will of it...

Russia is the only country with a fleet of special mission subs for seabed warfare and espionage and is expanding the capability. Other countries, like the U.S., also work well in this arena and have specialist capabilities, but these capabilities reside on multi-mission platforms.

Russia’s fleet includes two massive submarine motherships that each carry one or two deep-diving submersibles. These can be employed for covert seabed missions, including wreck plundering...

Russia's Growing Secret Submarine Fleet Key to Moscow's Undersea Future - USNI News

Tensions between Washington and Moscow are rising with a marked increase in competition in the undersea domain, as Russia continues to invest in a fleet of specialized submarines. Russia is the only country with a fleet of special mission subs for seabed warfare and espionage and is expanding...

news.usni.org

 

[K1052]

If Ukraine had the capability to secretly plant sub-sea explosives, some 800km away from Ukraine ~ they would instead have blown the Kerch bridge supports

Must have done it from their secret submarine base on the Polish coast.

Anybody who claims Putin wouldn't be this petty has never read a thing about the man.

 

[IronWing]

Make what you will of it...

Russia is the only country with a fleet of special mission subs for seabed warfare and espionage and is expanding the capability. Other countries, like the U.S., also work well in this arena and have specialist capabilities, but these capabilities reside on multi-mission platforms.

Russia’s fleet includes two massive submarine motherships that each carry one or two deep-diving submersibles. These can be employed for covert seabed missions, including wreck plundering...

Russia's Growing Secret Submarine Fleet Key to Moscow's Undersea Future - USNI News

Tensions between Washington and Moscow are rising with a marked increase in competition in the undersea domain, as Russia continues to invest in a fleet of specialized submarines. Russia is the only country with a fleet of special mission subs for seabed warfare and espionage and is expanding...

news.usni.org

TBH, those look pretty cool. Seaview in real life.

 

[Muse]

Only saw just now that Bea did a video on it

And this is how I read Zor's post : Who has motive? Not a "US DID IT!!!"

How about a summary of this video.

 

[cytg111]

How about a summary of this video.

Basically he makes the case for no-one knows yet, so personally he blames the little mermaid and some other cartoon character, as he put it, there is the same amount of supporting evidence for his theory as there is for anyone elses.
That being said he does iterate over possible entities with motives to do it (yes, the US is in this set too).
I like his framing of geopolitics: Poker, everyone is cheating and no room for morals.

 

[Leeea]

It was obviously the Ukranians, the fact that people don't even consider this seems pretty blinkered. I mean, logically it's not complex. It's your enemy, they get paid $10's of billions a month for gas by Europe, that is then used to buy bombs to kill Ukranians. If you could cut that financial supply with a small boat, a remote controlled sub and some charges why would you not? Kick them where it hurts, hard in the wallet. Obviously Russia still has other pipelines .... that go through Ukraine ... so gives Ukraine greater control of Russian gas.

Finally you can blame it on the Russians because no one believes a word they say.

No, Ukraine is the one country we can rule out:

A. Most to lose - Ukraine is 100% dependent on NATO for everything. Economy, Currency stabilization, refugees, humanitarian aid, war material, and training.

B. Lack of capability - Ukraine does not Baltic coastline. It would have to sneak a sub through Turkey's canal, and then through the Mediterranean to get there.

C. Compromised - Zelensky purged 100s of Russian spys from Ukrainian institutions right after the war started. Suddenly he just magically knew who was a Russian spy. It is reasonable to assume all the non-Russian spies are still around after they knocked off their Russian competition.


Ukraine did not do this.

No they are attacking Russia, they are quite happy for Europe to get it's power from somewhere that isn't Russia. Ukraine have pointed out on a number of occasions very strongly the stupidity of on one hand claiming to support them while on the other paying their enemy billions a month. I think Ukraine considers the life of it's people dying to the bombs paid for by those billions as the most important thing, and it's hard to argue with that.

I mean the US was happy to go around the world invading nations when it felt threatened after 9-11 when a few thousand died. What would they do if their cities were under permanent bombardment, are you saying they wouldn't blow up a gas money pipe because it might upset someone?

Like I said above, Ukraine has to much to lose, lacks capability, and lacks the secrecy to do this.

Another angle, it could be Russia but not Putin.

Could you elaborate?

 

[Leeea]

How about a summary of this video.

He claims it could have been anyone, which is silly.

Governments, corporations, individual people, environmentalists. Literally anyone.

He does this by asking who has motive?:
And yes, the list of people who have motive is long.

The problem with his video is he fails to ask important questions like:
Who has the most to lose?
Who has capability?

 

[Dribble]

If Ukraine had the capability to secretly plant sub-sea explosives, some 800km away from Ukraine ~ they would instead have blown the Kerch bridge supports

The Kerch bridge is well defended, much harder to blow up (would need much much larger charges to take down a bridge support), and probably less important to Russia then the billions they get from gas.

As to 800km comment, you didn't really give this any thought. All Ukraine needs is a underwater drone (lots of commercial rc subs designed for checking underwater piping exist), hire/buy a boat somewhere not too far away (e.g. an old fishing boat), sail over the pipe, drop the drone over the side and remote control it down, stick a simple timed charge on. Sort of thing that would take some organisation, but you could probably do it with 3 people and a little money. Being as Ukraine are pretty tech savy and innovative with their aerial drones I don't think it's much of a stretch to think using an undersea one is beyond them, or you could even use a diver (it's only 80m down).

 

[Leeea]

My thoughts:

It was most likely the Russians:
A. Capability: Special purpose ships designed just for this purpose.

B. Nothing to lose: Gas is cut off, LNG is arranged, pipeline from Norway built.

C. Premeditation: Russia built special purpose boats specifically for underwater hybrid war sabotage.

D. Motives:
Threat: Russia makes threats every day, this is their modus operandi.
Financial: Not on the hook for failure to deliver gas now.
Psyops: Lets get the allies fighting among themselves over who destroyed a worthless pipeline
Fear: Lets scare the people in Europe by hyping the danger of the coming winter.


We see Russia taking long shots all over the place. This is not even a long shot, this was an easy one. Classic Russian hybrid war tactics.

 

[K1052]

The Kerch bridge is well defended, much harder to blow up (would need much much larger charges to take down a bridge support), and probably less important to Russia then the billions they get from gas.

As to 800km comment, you didn't really give this any thought. All Ukraine needs is a underwater drone (lots of commercial rc subs designed for checking underwater piping exist), hire/buy a little boat (e.g. an old fishing boat) somewhere not too far away, sail over the pipe, drop the drone over the side and remote control it down, stick a simple timed charge on. Sort of thing that would take some organisation, but you could probably do it with 3 people. Being as Ukraine are pretty tech savy and innovative with their aerial drones I don't think it's much of a stretch to think using an undersea one is beyond them, or you could even use a diver (it's only 80m down).

As outlandish as this scenario is there is also no attempt to explain why Ukraine would risk alienating their most important military and financial supporters when Russia could deliver gas via the Yamal pipeline or through Turkey instead.

It's a petty swipe from Putin at the Germans, nothing more.

 

[Leeea]

The Kerch bridge is well defended, much harder to blow up (would need much much larger charges to take down a bridge support), and probably less important to Russia then the billions they get from gas.

As to 800km comment, you didn't really give this any thought. All Ukraine needs is a underwater drone, hire/buy a little boat somewhere not too far away, sail over the pipe, drop the drone over the side and remote control it down, stick a simple timed charge on. Sort of thing that would take some organisation, but you could probably do it with 3 people and easily available tech. Being as Ukraine are pretty tech savy and innovative with their aerial drones I don't think it's much of a stretch to think a undersea one is beyond them, or you could even use a diver (it's only 80m down).

All the under sea drones I have seen on TV are a bit more complicated then that.

80 meters is 262 feet, which is rather extreme for a diver. 132 PSI is rather something, even for a drone to overcome and function in. Your looking at something that is going to be substantial, and require a rather substantial power, lighting, remote control, and tether cable back to the mother ship. Which in turn is going to manifest it self as a rather obvious reel.


Sitting stationary over the pipeline is also likely to attract attention, a coast guard warning not to drop your anchor, and a "safety" inspection. Going to be difficult to explain the drone infrastructure on the boat to the coasty. Illegal fishing is a thing, so that might be their first suspicion, but it will not take them long to figure out what they are looking at.


This is an area very sensitive to all the nations in the area after all.

 

[Dribble]

As outlandish as this scenario is there is also no attempt to explain why Ukraine would risk alienating their most important military and financial supporters when Russia could deliver gas via the Yamal pipeline or through Turkey instead.

It's a petty swipe from Putin at the Germans, nothing more.

Saying Putin (who controls one end of the pipe) needs to blow it up is much more outlandish. If he doesn't want the gas to flow he can just turn it off at source.

The other pipes don't go to Germany and western Europe, if that pipe is down then he loses tens of billions a month, pretty important when you are trying to fund a very expensive war and the rest of your economy is crashing due to sanctions.

 

[cytg111]

Could you elaborate?

Just spit balling here, but would it be far fetched to imagine that Putins opposition within country want him even more isolated? As I see it, this takes a card away from Putin, now he cant claim that "come winter they all drop the sanctions cause they *need* our gas. That card is off the table now, Putin is running out of wiggle room.
Again, not saying it is, but someone there surely have motive?

 

[K1052]

Saying Putin (who controls one end of the pipe) needs to blow it up is much more outlandish. If he doesn't want the gas to flow he can just turn it off at source.

The other pipes don't go to Germany and western Europe, if that pipe is down then he loses tens of billions a month, pretty important when you are trying to fund a very expensive war and the rest of your economy is crashing due to sanctions.

Nordstream 2 never delivered gas and Nordstream 1 was all but shut. Yes, Yamal can deliver gas to Germany.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Could Russia just slip a few bombs into the pipeline, wait until they reach the optimal destination, and then remote detonate?

 

[fskimospy]

Saying Putin (who controls one end of the pipe) needs to blow it up is much more outlandish. If he doesn't want the gas to flow he can just turn it off at source.

The other pipes don't go to Germany and western Europe, if that pipe is down then he loses tens of billions a month, pretty important when you are trying to fund a very expensive war and the rest of your economy is crashing due to sanctions.

If you think about this logically the Russians blowing it up is by far the most likely answer. They have the access to do so and the motive.

Ukraine blowing up a gas pipe that no gas was being delivered through at the risk of alienating their most important allies and essentially losing the war makes no sense.

Regardless, there will be an investigation and I suspect we will find out relatively shortly who did it. (Russia)

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

The same type of posts have been made daily. Some new map, some new village.

Twitter posts are not the best source of information as no real quality control but still not the fall of Lyman that has been predicted every day for a week or more already.

What exactly does a war like this look like to you? Capturing village by village is exactly how things go.

 

[Leeea]

Saying Putin (who controls one end of the pipe) needs to blow it up is much more outlandish. If he doesn't want the gas to flow he can just turn it off at source.

The other pipes don't go to Germany and western Europe, if that pipe is down then he loses tens of billions a month, pretty important when you are trying to fund a very expensive war and the rest of your economy is crashing due to sanctions.

Putin's motives have been detailed by multiple people in this thread.

At this point you are just sticking your fingers in your ears and going LA LA LA like a toddler.

 

[pmv]

The difference being that Nordstream is owned by a Russian company, so it is not an attack on a NATO member, an attack on this pipeline very much is and would inflict article 5.

I am inclined to believe the Russians did it, but it still seems murky as to what the purpose of doing so was. It's been reported the explosion occured just barely outside of Danish territorial waters - implying someone was being careful not to be seen as directly attacking a NATO country?

"Sending a message" is a possible explanation, but it seems a slightly obscure message. Seems more plausible to me that it's just an alternative to constantly halting deliveries on the pretext of 'maintenance work'. Or could it actually have been accidental after all?